Pornhub Hit by Layoffs Amid Top Exec Resignations, Report on Site Hosting Nonconsensual Sex Videos
Pornhub, the massive pornography site owned and operated by MindGeek, has laid off an unknown number of staffers, according to social media posts.
A rep for MindGeek declined to specify the number of employees who have been pink-slipped.
More from Variety
The layoffs at MindGeek came as the company said CEO Feras Antoon and COO David Tassillo resigned in a leadership transition was in the works since early this year. Antoon and Tassillo will remain shareholders in MindGeek.
The shakeup at the internet porn giant follows the New Yorker’s publication of an investigative piece last week on MindGeek documenting how Pornhub has hosted sexually explicit nonconsensual videos — including those with children — and that several of the people in those videos spent months trying to get the site to remove the material.
In addition to the two executive departures, MindGeek planned to lay off “a number of its staff, in an attempt to cut costs after suffering revenue declines over the past 18 months following a series of revelations that MindGeek had allowed child sexual abuse material and other nonconsensual videos to be posted on Pornhub,” the Globe and Mail reported Tuesday.
Both Visa and Mastercard have cut off payment processing to MindGeek, according to the Globe and Mail report.
On Tuesday, a Twitter user with the name “Lylli,” whose bio said she was a senior community manager at MindGeek’s Pornhub, YouPorn and RedTube, tweeted that she had been laid off. “Due to company layoffs as of five minutes ago I’m no longer employed,” Lylli posted.
The spokesperson for MindGeek told Variety that rumors that the company had laid off more than half its staff were “insane and totally false.” Among those was a post Tuesday on Blind, a social network that lets employees anonymously share information about their companies, that said regarding MindGeek, “They just fired 70% of the company. Vps, managers, engineers, etc. CEO was changed. Only a skeleton crew is left on [Pornhub] and TrafficJunky,” the latter of which is MindGeek’s adult advertising network.
MindGeek at one point had about 1,600 employees globally. The company is officially incorporated in Luxembourg but its main office is based in Montreal. The company has claimed that its network of sites including Pornhub reach 150 million daily visitors.
Best of Variety
Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
